Little luxuries

Women buy self-tanners, men warm to skin-care items

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Their financial portfolios may not look so good, but men and women aren't shying away from investing in their own appearances.

In fact, beauty products such as teeth-whiteners and hair removal kits are all but flying off drugstores' shelves as consumers reveal more of their bodies for summer and seek affordable pick-me-ups in a gloomy market environment.

"Generally in times of recession, personal-care product sales go up," said Janae Lepir, an analyst at consumer research firm Datamonitor.

"Consumers tend to want to treat themselves, when things aren't going so well, with small pleasures."

And this time is proving no exception. U.S. sales of personal care products hit $34 billion last year, a figure that's expected to grow to $36.7 billion by 2004, according to Datamonitor.

New offerings for men

Women still account for the bulk of vanity-market consumption, indulging in a range of goods from sunless-tanning lotions and make-up to anti-cellulite treatments and hybrid, multi-function "cosmeceuticals."

But their dominance appears to be waning as more men take a shine to new, non-surgical image-enhancers now showing up in the aisles.

Make room at the mirror. Once wary of crossing into traditionally female territory, men are finding and buying more items that cater to their sex's particular grooming concerns.

Recent introductions from Neutrogena
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and Nivea have given men's lines new prominence and social acceptability, catapulting sales of male-targeted skin care products up 100 percent over last year at Drugstore.com
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said Sharon Wikstrom, one of the company's senior merchandising directors.

"Men's skin care has really kind of gone from zero to 60," she said. "Much of it didn't exist even nine months ago."

As a result, more manufacturers are rushing to capture a piece of the male grooming market, expected to be worth $8.8 billion worldwide in two years, by designing masculine brands and moving them to the front of store shelves.

Gender benders

Nair's infamous "short-shorts" television advertisements identified unwanted body hair as a woman's problem, but with more products aimed at them, guys too can preen and fret over their follicles.

Depilatories from Nads, Nair and Epilstop are clogging up online shopping carts at Drugstore.com, said Julie Johnston, who oversees personal care merchandising.

"They cater to two different types of people -- someone who's concerned about something like back hair or an athlete who needs to shave his legs."

While most of the site's customers are women, many of them buy products for the men in their lives, Johnston said. "We knew hair removal was a strong trend in the market, but it's literally been double our expectations of what it would be."

The company is gearing up for similar demand for Axe, Unilever's
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deodorant body spray for men, due for a North American launch next month, she said.

For its part, Unilever is carving out a place for Axe in guys' bathrooms by reportedly spending $90 million to promote the product, which has a suggested retail price of under $5 for a 4-ounce can, in the U.S. and Canada.

Another category that's gaining ground in an unconventional gender market is hair-loss products. Drugstore.com's sales of treatments that fight women's hair thinning are up 16 percent this year since Rogaine, an industry leader, began targeting females, Johnston said.

But hair isn't the only attribute consumers deem worth the cost of primping. Brushing up caffeine-stained smiles with do-it-yourself teeth-whitening kits from brands such as Crest, Supersmile, Colgate and Rembrandt is a popular indulgence as well, she said.

Personal care purchases across the board are also brisk at Rite Aid
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which launched private-label shampoos and hair-styling products in its 3,500 U.S. stores two months ago, spokeswoman Sarah Datz said.

Many of Rite Aid's mostly female customers are scooping up traditional products such as lipstick, nail polish and make-up this year, she said. "Our beauty care items are doing well despite the downturn in the economy."

Sexes split on sun care

Of course, it wouldn't be summer without sun-care products, another hot topic in wellness and grooming-business circles.

When it comes to catching rays, men tend to buy more SPF protection lotions, while women cash in on sunless tanners that give them color without the skin cancer risk and photo-aging side effects of absorbing the sun's ultraviolet light.

SPF products make up nearly three-fourths of the total sun-care market, which Datamonitor estimates at $900 million this year.

One of the fastest-growing segments, however, is sunless tanning items such as those from Estee Lauder, Clarin's Self-Tanning Milk SPF 6 and Lancome's Flash Bronzer Gel, Lepir said.

As consumers become more educated about the sun's harmful effects, women are shelling out for these upscale image products in greater numbers than men, often with the help of cheeky promotions.

An ad for a self-tanning lotion on the Body Shop's Web site, for example, beckons buyers with a decidedly "Cosmopolitan" spin -- "Smart Girls Fake It."

And just to make matters more interesting, a host of new products blurs the line between cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, throwing in "anti-wrinkle" or "anti-blemish" agents on top of an item's primary function to make it part make-up, part skin therapy.

These cosmeceuticals may collapse gender differences in sun care products' appeal by making aloe vera, for example, an expected ingredient -- and one that's neither traditionally male nor female.

Said Lepir: "Consumers may be looking for an after-sun moisturizer because their skin is dry. It's not just a function to soothe your sunburn. It's an added value --'Treat your skin.'"

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